Park commission to meet, discuss 2015 projects

The advisory commission for Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park will meet on Thursday to discuss updates for the 2015 season.

The meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. at Strasburg Town Hall and is open to the public.

Attending the meeting will be Shenandoah National Park Superintendent Jim Northup as well as Amy Bracewell, Cedar Creek site manager.

Park ranger Eric Campbell said the meeting will focus on some of the on-going projects the park has on the table, including “trail development on park land and partner sites.”

According to Campbell, the park is also working on interpretive ranger programming for this year.

In addition to those projects, Campbell said park officials will present a new park logo to the commission.

The logo, Campbell noted, is part of a signage project the park has been working on for a few years. Last year, the park was able to implement some of the signage.

“We worked with our partners to develop it over about a six-month period,” he said, “Now we’re going to show the commission and get their comments on it.”

This presentation, Campbell added, would be the last tweak before the logo is finalized.

“With all of the partners we have … they all agreed that it was a good idea to develop a shared logo that they all could use … for different things,” Campbell said.

Alongside those projects, Campbell noted that the commission and park officials will be updating the commission on the park’s nationwide “Bells Across the Land” program that will be taking place April 9.

Following that, Campbell said the park will have a few events covering the last bit of the sesquicentennial.

“There will be other special programs that we’ll talk about later this year, which talk about the end of the war and its impact on the Shenandoah Valley,” he said, “As far as battle anniversaries, that will end this April.”